Description
About We Are Going To Be Ok
From the Local Knowledge series (2014–ongoing)
By Sally Lundburg & Keith Tallett
Work Description:
This piece draws from Barack Obama’s final speech as President, capturing a moment of calm amid uncertainty. We chose this text for how it reflects the role of shared language in providing comfort, resilience, and connection — themes central to the Local Knowledge series.
Series Description:
In the Local Knowledge series, we use text, humor, and irony to explore the shifting dynamics of place and identity. Through intentional misspellings, letter placement, and image–text juxtapositions, the works allude to layered or hidden meanings. Functioning as alternative signage, they offer warnings, invitations, and anecdotal observations for communities in transition.
The concept of local knowledge refers to knowledge systems that are dynamic—continuously adapting as people respond to environmental and cultural change, and as ideas are absorbed and reinterpreted across contexts. All communities possess forms of local knowledge: rural and urban, settled and migratory, Indigenous and diasporic.
The series includes both mixed-media paintings and environmental installations (Local Knowledge, Onsite). The onsite works are documented through photography and are offered as archival prints when collected. Fifteen paintings from the series were featured in the 2017 Honolulu Biennial, where it was described as establishing “foundations for ongoing connections between local and non-local communities, strengthening Hawaiʻi’s social fabric.”
Materials:
14″ × 14″ mixed-media painting: enamel paint, powdered pigment, archival inkjet rice paper, and epoxy resin on wood panel with light wood sides.
